Despite the growth of the European ETF industry, there is one question which drives the discussions of market observers. Is there a consolidation ahead in the European ETF industry? This question seems to be a bit odd given the growth in assets under management and the overall level of estimated net inflows over the year 2024, as well as the previous years. On the other hand, the estimated net inflows were quite concentrated. This means that only a limited number of ETFs, and as a result a small number of promoters, were able to gather a significant share of these

The assets under management in the European ETF industry are highly concentrated at the classification level. Even as one would expect that the AUM are concentrated at the classification level since this reflects the asset allocation views of the investors—which are in general rather streamlined than widely diverging—the level of concentration might be surprising. ETFs classified as Equity U.S. held 26.83% of the overall assets under management at the end of December 2024. The second largest classification, Equity Global, held 18.09% of the overall AUM and Equity Emerging Markets Global held 4.26%. Given the fact that Equity U.S. and Equity

Investors, market observers, and regulators always raise questions about the competitiveness of the European ETF industry since assets under management seem to be concentrated among a few ETF promoters. Generally speaking, I would agree with the statement that one needs to be concerned if a few players are dominating a market, but not when it comes to the European ETF industry. Graph 1 shows that the European ETF industry is highly concentrated at the promoter level since the 10-top promoters in Europe held between 93.52% (June 30, 2023) and 95.06% (December 31, 2024) of the overall assets under management in

February 2025 was another month with strong inflows for the global ETF industry. These inflows occurred in a volatile market environment in which investors around the globe acted nervous over any political and economic news. Investor sentiment was impacted by the discussions around tariffs imposed by the U.S. president and potential tit-for-tat reactions from the markets which are the targets of the new tariffs. That said, the tariffs are seen as a kind of trade war between the U.S. and the rest of the world by some market observers. When it comes to this, investors were concerned about a political

February 2025 was another month with strong inflows (+€33.8 bn) for the European ETF industry. These flows were way above the rolling 12-month average (€23.5 bn) and might be an indicator that the European ETF industry is set to continue to grow above average over the course of 2025. In fact, if the European ETF industry is able to maintain net inflows at the same level for January and February for the rest of the year, it would hit an all-time high for annual inflows on a totally different level than before. The inflows in the European ETF industry for

February 2025 was another month with strong inflows for the U.S. ETF industry. These inflows occurred in a volatile market environment in which investors around the globe acted nervous over any political and economic news. Investor sentiment was impacted by the discussions around tariffs by the U.S. president and potential tit-for-tat reactions from the markets which are the targets of the new tariffs. That said, the tariffs are seen as a kind of trade war between the U.S. and the rest of the world by some market observers. When it comes to this, investors were concerned about a political shift

February 2025 was another month with strong inflows for the European ETF industry. These inflows occurred in a volatile market environment in which investors around the globe acted nervous over any political and economic news. Investor sentiment was impacted by the discussions around tariffs by the U.S. president and potential tit-for-tat reactions from the markets which are the targets of the new tariffs. That said, the tariffs are seen as a kind of trade war between the U.S. and the rest of the world by some market observers. When it comes to this, investors were concerned about a political shift

Before the financial crisis occurred in 2008, the market share of the main replication methods used by ETF promoters in Europe was nearly evenly split between physical (full/optimized) and synthetic replication. That said, one needs to bear in mind that the vast majority of assets in the European ETF industry was invested in equity ETFs at this point in time. This changed in the aftermath of the financial crisis as European investors realized that a swap or other derivatives used for synthetic replication have a counterparty risk and, therefore, avoided ETFs which were using synthetic replication where possible. As a

The Magnificent 7 (Mag-7) make up about one-third of the S&P 500’s total market value and have been the main contributors to earnings growth in recent quarters. For example, in 2023, S&P 500 earnings grew by 4.1%, but when we exclude the Mag-7, growth fell to -1.3%. While the Mag-7 are still expected to post strong earnings growth in the quarters ahead, their relative contribution to overall S&P 500 earnings growth is expected to decline, with the rest of the index (S&P 493) playing a larger role heading into 2025. To illustrate this, Mag-7 earnings are expected to rise 17.1%

The total expense ratio (TER) of an ETF is a measure that sums up the management fee of the ETF plus all other expenses paid by the ETF. Therefore, an analysis of the Total Expense Ratios is more meaningful than a quick comparison of management fees. Even though the TER is a competitive measure, it has some flaws since there are costs which are not covered within the TER. In addition, there are costs for buying, selling, and holding an ETF. All the missing costs are displayed in the total costs of ownership (TCO). Since some of these costs depend

The European ETF industry enjoyed strong estimated net inflows (+€29.0 bn) over the course of January. These flows were way above the rolling 12-month average (€22.0 bn) and might be an indicator that the European ETF industry is set to continue to grow above average over the course of 2025. The inflows in the European ETF industry for January were driven by equity ETFs (+€24.0 bn), followed by bond ETFs (+€3.6 bn), money market ETFs (+€1.7 bn), and mixed-assets ETFs (+€0.1 bn). On the other side of table, commodities ETFs (-€0.03 bn) and alternatives ETFs (-€0.4 bn) shed money. Estimated

The global ETF industry enjoyed general inflows over the course of January 2025. These inflows occurred in a mainly positive but volatile market environment. The markets were driven by the effects around the inauguration of Donald Trump as the next U.S. president. On one hand, investors appreciated the expected positive impacts on the U.S. economy from the new administration. Meanwhile, they feared the impacts from possible tariffs, which may cause a global trade war as an unwanted side-effect and higher government spending on inflation and, therefore, on the resulting policies of the U.S. Federal Reserve. That said, the high valuations